Diana Ruggiero

Diana Ruggiero is PhD student in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University. She is researching the genetics of plant development and is using both molecular and computational approaches. Her adviser is Dr. Samuel Leiboff.

Before starting graduate school, Diana worked for several years doing ecological restoration, landscaping, and trail work in the Pacific Northwest. She is an AmeriCorps alumna and has a B.A. in Computer Science from Bard College.

Ms. Ruggiero is proud to represent the ARCS Foundation as a supported graduate scholar of the Oregon Chapter.

You can contact her at: druggiero@protonmail.com

Education

Oregon State University, College of Agricultural Sciences | Corvallis, OR

Bard College | Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

Publications

O'Hara, K., Burke, K., Ruggiero, D., and Anderson, S. "Linking Language & Thinking with Code: Computing within a Writing-Intensive Introduction to the Liberal Arts." ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE). July 2017. [doi.org/10.1145/3059009.3059018]

Invited Talks

(Podcast Interview) Genome Insider S3 Episode 2: Better Crops With a Pointillist Approach to Plant Genomics. DOE Joint Genome Institute. August 2022

(Short Talk) "Combinatorial barcoding for single-nucleus sequencing of developing maize leaf primordia." Plant Biology 2022, American Society of Plant Biologists. Portland, OR. July 2022

(Lightning Talk), "Single-cell genomics and high-throughput phenotyping for determining the quantitative genetics of maize leaf vascular development." 64th Annual Maize Genetics Meeting. St. Louis, MO. March 2022

Awards and Scholarships

• ARCS Scholar Award, 2020-2023 - ARCS Foundation, Oregon Chapter
   Support for early-career researchers of U.S. citizenship pursuing doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, medicine, or mathematics
• Provost Scholarship, 2020 - Oregon State University
   Awarded to select newly admitted graduate students
• John W. Boylan Scholarship in Science & Medicine, 2015 - Bard College
   Given to a premedicine or science major who maintains an interest in literature or music

Current Research Projects

My research concerns the genetic pathways involved in the development of veins and vascular patterning in the leaves of Zea mays. Some of the approaches I am using include single-cell RNA sequencing of leaves and a GWAS (Genome-Wide Association Study) of vein phenotypes over a large panel of around 800 different maize lines. I am particularly interested in vascular traits which differ between C₃ and C₄ plants.

I am interested in using computational approaches within plant science; as such I am developing an automated phenotyping tool using neural nets to facilitate my GWAS data collection. I am also exploring computational models of genetic regulatory networks and plant morphogenesis.

More on all this coming soon!